South Dakota State University fans erupt with cheers Saturday at Coughlin-Alumni Stadium. The Jackrabbits won 31-8. / Emily Spartz / Argus Leader

Jason Kratochvil and Matt Jensen tailgate before the game outside Coughlin-Alumni Stadium.

University of South Dakota linebacker Tim Marlette of Sioux Falls hugs his dad, Bill, while his mom, Jan, waits her turn after Saturday's game. / Emily Spartz / Argus Leader

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BROOKINGS — If you were weaving through the tailgate area outside Coughlin-Alumni Stadium on Saturday, it didn’t take long to see a dead coyote.

The poor guy was straddled on a lawn chair in the back of a pickup, with a beer can wedged between his paws and a cardboard sign overhead that said, well, something bad about the University of South Dakota.

The Coyotes were playing century-old rival South Dakota State in football for the first time since 2003, and there were no primary colors beyond red and blue.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” said SDSU senior Everett Strong, an English literature major who shot the coyote on a sheep farm near Bruce. “We had him out on our front lawn this morning and people stopped in the middle of the road to take pictures. From what I’ve heard, people used to go pretty extreme with this rivalry years ago, so we tried to do it justice.”

That was a common theme Saturday, as South Dakotans from both sides of the rivalry tried to take stock of a tradition that dates to 1889 but has entered a new age.

SDSU joined the ranks of NCAA Division I four years before USD, which led to almost a decade of inactivity in this football series and also gave the Jackrabbits a head start on the future.

Now that the schools finally are in the same league again, the tradition lives on. But is it the same?

It didn’t seem so on the field, as the Jackrabbits jumped to a 24-0 lead and on their way to a 31-8 victory that probably sends SDSU into the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the second time in four years.

USD, meanwhile, finished 1-10 in its first year in the Missouri Valley Football Conference as the school tries to find its way as a full-fledged Division I program.

Even in the stands, Coyote Nation seemed to lag behind. The attendance of 15,278 was the seventh-largest in stadium history but fell short of expectations, mainly because USD failed to put forth a sea of red in the visitors’ grandstand.

“When we went Division I, I heard from 10,000 people concerned that we would never play this game again,” said SDSU coach John Stiegelmeier. “Well, evidently they didn’t all show up, because we didn’t fill the stadium.

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“I had a lot of former players that were more fired up about the rivalry than my current players, because our kids have never been through it. Next year, when we go down there and we’re in their environment and see their spirited crowd, it will be huge. But it’s going to take some time.”

Maybe what we learned is that the rhythm of this rivalry — at least in its current state — comes from those watching from afar, rather than those on the field.

It comes from people such as Barry and Paula Gapp, a Sioux Falls couple who stood along a sideline fence before Saturday’s game and watched the SDSU band enter the stadium.

Their daughter, Jayden, plays the mellophone in the Pride of the Dakotas, a source of pride for Paula, an SDSU alum, and also for Barry, who attended USD.

When a wife wears blue and a husband wears red to a game like this, the potential for friction exists. But in the end, that’s part of the fun.

“My daughter wasn’t very happy when I told her I’d be wearing red,” said Barry, who donned a Coyote rugby sweatshirt to commemorate his days with that club. “She gave me a little grief about that, but I didn’t give in.”

There was merciful absence of grief for most of the day, with few incidents other than what would be expected of a football rivalry clash. Security complaints were few, and even when SDSU fans derided the USD band at halftime (cheering when a majorette dropped a baton and lobbing a plastic football), it seemed more playful than threatening.

Sure, there was a dead coyote with a beer can in the parking lot. But it didn’t get tossed onto the field, just like no dead animals flew during men’s basketball battles between these teams last season.

“For us in administration, there’s a feeling of wanting to respect history and tradition, but also to take it into a new era,” said SDSU athletic director Justin Sell, who was hired from Northern Iowa in 2009. “We’d like to move on from a feeling of blatant hate to one of sportsmanship and respect, but still really wanting to beat each other.”

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That approach, which would have seemed hopelessly naďve back in 2003 as the North Central Conference was being torn asunder, appeared downright possible in the hours before Saturday’s game.

Mark Spitzenberger, a 1993 USD alum who now is an accountant in Mitchell, stood in the parking lot enjoying a cold beverage with fellow Coyote supporters and marveled at the lack of malice in the air.

“As much as I hated to see the schools stop playing each other for those nine years, it might have been for the best,” he said. “It cooled things off a bit, and you don’t see the animosity that there was when they played all the time. They’re trying to get it back to where it’s about the game and not dead animals.”

Of course, SDSU has also gone to great lengths to make it clear that they don’t really need the Coyotes anymore, that they have moved on to bigger things. The Jacks have played up their rivalry with North Dakota State, a former NCC ally that went Division I at the same time as SDSU.

But playing the Bison doesn’t spark that fervor within state lines, with co-workers, students and alumni taking sides and showing their true colors. Aren’t bragging rights more meaningful if you’re bragging to your neighbor?

“They want to make NDSU their rival, and I understand all that, but I don’t care about NDSU, and half the people in this state don’t care about NDSU,” said Spitzenberger during a break in his USD festivities. “That’s why this day is so big, because South Dakotans all have a rooting interest in this game. This will be the big game every year if we can just uphold our part.”

Clearly, somebody in Brookings thought Saturday’s game was a big deal, because the Jackrabbits came out in throwback jerseys modeled after 1985, when SDSU defeated a Coyote team that was ranked No. 1 in front of a then-record crowd of 16,193.

“This is not a special game for us in August or September, because we’ve got other things we need to focus on,” Sell said. “But when we get to the week of playing USD, this is a really special game. It’s important to us, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably not being forthcoming. We get to experience all that intensity, then go across the field, shake hands, and know that we’re all going to do this again.”

For Chris Tracy, a senior linebacker for SDSU, those words ring true. He’s not a South Dakotan, but he grew up just across the border in Larchwood, Iowa, and has a firm grasp of the rivalry.

When he scooped up a Coyote fumble in the first quarter and rambled 43 yards for a touchdown, igniting the Coughlin-Alumni crowd, Tracy became part of the history of this series. He fed off the pregame energy and made a play that probably helped the Jackrabbits extend their season while spoiling USD’s upset hopes.

As the blue colors rose and the red sunk low, Tracy didn’t need a dead animal to tell him that this is a rivalry.

“I don’t think the game was overhyped at all,” he said. “We look forward to it, they look forward to it, and the whole state of South Dakota goes along for the ride.”